Can a True American be a True Darwinist?

At first glance, it may appear that a discussion concerning the foundation or origin of American government has nothing to do with the philosophy of Darwinian evolution. But, anyone who has study the impact of Darwinism on governments around the world does not so naively dismiss the influence and implications of Darwinism upon America’s historic foundation of government.

On February 11, 2015, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, while speaking at Chatham House, the British Royal Institute of International affairs in London, was asked by a British moderator if he believed in evolution. Caught off guard by the question and not willing to hastily answer, Governor Walker chose not to answer. Liberal media around the world, howled in ridicule, and conservative columnist, George Will, offered the Governor a bit of advise from Fox News Sunday suggesting, “When asked if you believe, ‘you answer yes!'”[1]

George Will

Whether Mr. Will sought to rebuke the perceived naivety of Governor Walker or was merely offering sage advise to avert disaster in the future is uncertain, but what is certain is the fact that Mr. Will, like much of America, appears to assume that belief in the theory of evolution is compatible with moorings of American government. Rather, it is far more likely that, as is true for most of America, Mr. Will has never carefully considered the irreconcilable difference concerning the origin of government that exists between America’s Founding Fathers and Darwin’s theory of evolution. By exposing the origin of government advocated by these two schools of thought, their irreconcilable difference should become easily discernable.

To the careful observer, few pictures speak of the harmony that existed in the thinking of America’s Founding Fathers between the laws of nature and the moral laws of Godas does the picture of Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in a thunderstorm. Dr. Franklin understood that to get his kite aloft, he had to observe the divinely established laws of nature. Likewise, Franklin and other Founding Fathers knew that a nation could not successfully soar aloft without observing the natural and moral laws of God. The Christian origin of America precedes its origin as an independent nation by nearly two hundred years. By the time the Thirteen America Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776, all Thirteen Colonies possessed well-developed legal histories that were firmly rooted within the Christian tradition, and more specifically, were established upon the principles of Scripture. Unlike misinformed contemporary legal scholars, the earliest settlers in every American Colony were not ashamed to appeal to the Bible as their legal and moral foundation. The earliest claim by the English concerning the exploration of North America was the commission granted by King Henry VII to John Cabot to explore lands and waterways in the New World. Beginning with this commission, or patent, all English commissions, charters, or legal documents granting the right of exploration or existence were all Christian in tone. The commission to John Cabot reflects this fact in the following quote:

John Cabot

Henry, by the grace of God, king of England and France, and lord of Ireland, to all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting. Be it known that we have given and granted, and by these presents do give and grant for us and our heiress to our well beloved John Cabot citizen of Venice . . . full and free authority, faculty, and power to sail to all parts, regions, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensigns . . . to seek out, discover, and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions or provinces of the heathen and infidels . . . which before this time have been unknown to all Christians.[2]

In fact, the charters, or compacts, of all Thirteen American Colonies contained language that demonstrated dependence upon and trust in the Bible and the Christian religion.[3]

Overwhelmingly, the colonist who established the Thirteen Colonies were from the Protestant religious tradition, which began in Germany in the early part of the sixteenth century. North of the Alps, Protestantism placed importance upon the Bible as the source of authority in the life of the Church as well as the moral foundation of civil government. Under the influence of the Renaissance, Christians south of the Alps placed greater trust in human reasoning, as emphasized by the ancient Greco-Roman world. With this as its foundation of authority, the Roman Catholic Church placed Church councils and human rational ability on equal or superior footing with the Bible. The vast majority of American colonists, however, came from those Protestant countries where the Bible was esteemed more highly. In fact, by the time the Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776, seventy-five percent of the colonists were from Protestant Puritanism.[4]

Writing the Declaration of Independence

When the Continental Congress framed the Declaration of Independence, it appealed to a foundation for law to which no other nation or people had ever appealed. As the following quotes from the Declaration will indicate, America’s Founding Fathers believed that the real source of human rights was not granted by any government, but by God the Creator through the laws of nature:

When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self—evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it . . .

Alexander Hamilton

For the Founding Fathers, natural law preceded the moral law of God revealed in the Bible, but the two laws were not at war with each other. The same God who established the laws of nature was the same God who established the moral laws of the Bible. Young Alexander Hamilton, not yet twenty years old, defended the appeal to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” In his pamphlet title The Farmer Refuted, Hamilton defended the actions of Congress by quoting well-known commentator on British law, William Blackstone, who spoke of, “an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever.”[5]

Far more time and space could be taken to demonstrate the religious and Christian origin of American law, but the single most important fact is that the Founding Fathers believed government was established upon a religious principle: God the Creator, Who determines the laws of nature, also has established moral laws for human society.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his book titled, On the Origin of Species, which offered an explanation for the evolutionary origin of the human race and sought to establish the principle of evolution in general. Though Darwin primarily intended his theory to impact the scientific world, its influence in human government quickly became apparent. In succeeding decades, Darwin’s alleged scientific theory of “survival of the fittest,” was used by secular and irreligious governments as justification for the suppression and extermination of “the weak” and undesirable elements of society.

On February 4, 2014, Bill Nye debated Ken Ham at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky on the question, “Is Creation A Viable Model of Origins?” Bill Nye violated the commonly advocated position among evolutionists not to debate creationists. There is wisdom in discouraging evolutionists from being exposed to the ridicule they have so richly earned. What evolutionists do not want the rest of the world to realize is that evolution has no credible means of defending itself. While the public generally is only aware of Darwinism as the popular means of evolution, there are three other theories also held by evolutionists: Lamarckism, the Mutation Theory, and Neo-Darwinism.[6] Not one of the four theories has been capable of producing the evidence to defend their faith-based beliefs.

In his book, The Collapse of Evolution, Dr. Scott M. Huse summarizes the hoax of evolution that has been pushed upon the world: “Étoday’s evolutionist is left without a mechanism for his theory [of evolution].”[7] In his book, Darwin acknowledged that he did not have the evidence to prove his theory, but he hoped succeeding generations of evolutionists would succeed where he failed. His hope has never been realized. The greatest impact Darwin’s theory has had upon the world has not been scientific, but political or governmental.

Darwinian Influence

In his book, Darwin: Portrait of a Genius, distinguished author, Paul Johnson, is candid concerning the devastating impact of the application of Darwin’s philosophy to social agendas around the world.[8] These social policies were the rational extension of Darwinism and used by numerous world regimes to suppress and control ethnic populations that were considered inferior. Adolph Hitler adopted the use of Darwin, using Darwin’s dominant theme of struggle in his own autobiography, Mein Kampf, that is, My Struggle! Two of Hitler’s right-hand men “were students of Darwin”, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler.[9] The Fathers of Communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “pounced upon the Origin the week of its appearance,”[10] and bequeathed to their disciples Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung (or Mao Zedong), and Pol Pot Darwin’s legacy of struggle and death.[11] These followers of Charles Darwin, and many others unmentioned, have wielded a staggering influence upon world history that is difficult to comprehend. As author, Paul Johnson, concluded his chapter on Darwin’s global social and political impact, he offered this dismal summary:

In the twentieth century, it is likely that over 100 million people were killed or starved to death as a result of totalitarian regimes infected with varieties of social Darwinism. . . . At the time Origin was published, there were about 1,325 million human beings in the world. By the time Mao Tse-tung, last of the great “exterminators,” died, having himself presided over the deaths of 70 million, the human total had risen to 3,900 million.[12]

The truth is, Origin is a book that . . . had a devastating intellectual and emotional impact upon world society.[13]

Darwinism subverts the foundation of American government by replacing a confession concerning the divine origin of government with a haphazard tyrannical Darwinian failed philosophy. Every judge that employs the non-Constitutional expression, “Separation of Church and state,” with Darwinism seeks to usurp the foundation upon which America’s Founding Fathers established America’s federal government. The Declaration of Independence complained that the judges King George sent to America had become tyrants because they refused to acknowledge the colonists’ divinely granted rights. In the same sense, any judge in America that refuses to recognize the divine origin of law becomes a tyrant!

Benjamin Franklin knew that to successfully fly his kite, he was obligated to comply with the natural law of the Creator. Likewise, Dr. Franklin also knew that for a nation to rise, it must comply with the moral laws of God. On June 28, 1787, Dr. Franklin rose on the floor of the Constitutional Convention that was composing the United States Constitution. The delegates to the Convention had labored for weeks with little progress. Realizing the need for divine intervention in their efforts, Dr. Franklin placed such a request before his fellow delegates, addressing himself to the chairman of the Convention:

Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth , that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that Òexcept the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.Ó I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move , that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.[14]

To answer the question: It is not possible for a true American who believes in the divine origin of law to be a true Darwinist who believes that what is right is determined by who has the might!

[2] Orthography updated. “The Letters Patents of King Henry the Seventh Granted unto Iohn Cabot and his Three Sonnes, Lewis, Sebastian and Sancius for the the Discouerie of New and Unknowen Lands,” The Avalon Project. Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/15th_century/cabot01.asp, March 10, 2015.

[3] For a good introduction to the historical documents supporting this fact, please see the following work: Federer, William J. The Original 13: A Documentary History of Religion in AmericaÕs First Thirteen States. Amerisearch, Inc, 2007.

[4] Ahlstrom, Sydney. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972, 124.

[6] Though he remained an evolutionist until the end of his life, Harvard University professor, Stephen J. Gould, was at least honest enough to invite his fellow evolutionists to forsake the form of Darwinian evolution to his theory of enormous leaps in evolution. Strangely enough, Gould and Niles Eldredge were willing to say evolutionists have never had the evidence to support Darwinian’s theory of gradual evolution, but Gould was willing to invite his fellow evolutionary philosophers to embrace his “punctuated equilibria” theory of evolution, which was even far less plausible than Darwin’s gradual development. In essence, Gould and his colleague Eldredge were saying we have never had the evidence to support gradual evolution over millions of year, so evolution must have occurred very quickly: tadpoles produced chimpanzees as offspring in one generation, or very few generations. Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould publish their thought on evolution, insisting that Darwin’s gradual evolutionary theory never did have the evidence to support it claims. See “Punctuated equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism,” in T.J.M. Schopf, ed, Models in Paleobiology (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Company), 82-115. Strangely enough, Eldredge and Gould argued evolution had to come by huge leaps and bounds. As for evidence, never mind; evolutionists do not need any.

Can a True American be a True Darwinist

Stephen Flick heads Christian Heritage Fellowship, a national organization dedicated to reclaiming America’s Christian Heritage and celebrating the life-changing influence of the Gospel around the world.
Concerned with the cultural decay of America, Dr. Flick has sought to provide answers to fellow Christians (and unbelievers) concerning the questions and objections to Christianity often posed by secularists and the irreligious.
Dr. Flick is a writer and speaker and has authored numerous articles and books on America’s Christian heritage. He earned his Ph.D. from Drew University in history and Christian theology and has taught at the graduate level as full professor. He has been a licensed minster for nearly forty years and resides in East Tennessee with his wife, Beth. They have two grown, married children and five grandchildren.

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Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of...It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise; that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor...
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